


Life's Not Perfect

by NewLeeland



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of miscarriage, angst with happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 15:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10811988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NewLeeland/pseuds/NewLeeland
Summary: Set in an AU where Galen is still alive and Jyn and Cassian are married, but they lose their unborn child through a wound suffered on Endor. After this fateful battle, Cassian, Jyn and the rest of Rogue One have to deal with the horrors war has brought them as the fight against the Empire finally ends. It is not easy, but they are survivors.





	Life's Not Perfect

* * *

 

The first weeks after Endor might be the worst of Cassian’s life.

He’s pretty sure they are the worst of Jyn’s.

Despite all his assurances, he can’t stop the nightmares from infesting her thoughts once they lie down to sleep. Even in the weeks after Scarif, where all members of Rogue One suffered through night terrors, they weren’t nearly as bad.

He holds her in his arms, whispers calming words in her ear and assures her that he won’t stop loving her, won’t leave her to deal with this alone.

She wouldn’t be alone, of course. Baze, Chirrut and Bodhi are there, offering comfort in their own way. Bodhi full of pain and awkwardness, Baze gruff, but still somehow soft. Thankfully, Chirrut for once doesn’t repeat some Force mantras. If the will of the Force was to kill their child, the Force can kriff itself.

Even Draven shows sympathy, giving Cassian two weeks off. Despite their great victory, the Empire still stands and the war continues. Spies like him are still needed and the Alliance requires his services once again.

When Draven asks him to lead a reconnaissance mission on Anaxes, Cassian adamantly refuses. He can’t go and leave Jyn behind in their bed which she barely left since Endor. It crushes his heart to see the tough fighter that Jyn is replaced by a terrified shell of her former self.

Their discussion gets nasty. Draven berates him for neglecting his duties and the cause for one woman. Cassian is about to punch him - he knows he will be court-martialed, but right now, he couldn’t care less. But Galen Erso comes out of nowhere and shepherds him away. Two hours later, a messenger finds Cassian in his quarters. Draven has extended his leave. Indefinitely.

One night, about six weeks after that cursed day on Endor, Cassian nurses a drink in the cantina of their base. Galen has offered to take care of Jyn for the evening, desperately trying to mend the trenches that now exist between father and daughter after he so miserably failed to comfort her after the loss of her child.

Cassian doesn’t want to leave her behind, not even for a few hours. When she doesn’t scream for their lost child, she screams for him, clearly panicked that he will leave her. The spy can’t go on missions anymore. He would never forgive himself if he did.

He is not one to drown his sorrows in alcohol. But the temptation increases exponentially once Han Solo enters the cantina and proceeds to sit down next to him.

Han Solo. Hero of the Rebellion. Princess Leia’s husband-to-be. Smuggler. Scoundrel. General. But Cassian only sees the man whom Jyn tried to protect and paid the highest price there is in the galaxy.

He wants to hate him, strangle him. But he feels numb.

The realization that nothing in the galaxy can bring back their child hurts even more than the moment he had read about Jyn’s injury.

* * *

 

They get drunk horribly that night. “She threw herself in the line of fire for me. For me! She didn’t even like me. I’m not even a real General”, Solo muses, his voice heavy with tears. Cassian never thought about how their loss could have affected other people. He knew Galen was maybe just as devastated as Jyn, he knew Bodhi, Baze and Chirrut felt the pain. It does not comfort him. Truth be told, it hurts even more.

* * *

 

It takes months before things go back to normal. Well, as normal as it can get for their motley crew.

None of them participate in the final battle over and on Jakku. Baze and Chirrut are exploring a planet for Jedhan fugitives, Bodhi’s pilot duties are not combat-related. Cassian is still on leave and so is Jyn.

The words finally find their way to somehow stitch the open wounds. Galen talks with her about her birth, about losing Lyra. Cassian tells her about his family. The conversations aren’t happy, but they help.

“We’re still alive, Jyn. As long as we are, there is hope”, he says one night as her face is once again buried in his neck, their skin wet with tears. The green eyes he loves so much have a spark he had missed when they look at him. The following kiss reminds him of happier days.

* * *

 

When the news reach them that the war is over and they have won, the whole base celebrates so hard that the parties after Yavin and Endor seem like dull affairs. Rogue One and Galen are not among the celebrating Rebels. They sit quietly in one of the empty war rooms, sharing stories and memories. All of them have lost so much.

Galen has lost his wife, years with his daughter and a clean conscience. No matter what happens, his name will forever be linked to the Death Star and the billions of dead people from Alderaan, Jedha and Scarif.

Chirrut and Baze have lost their home to the Death Star and most of their Guardian friends years before that.

Bodhi has lost his home too. Lost a family who loved him. Lost part of his sanity to Bor Gullet. Sometimes, it still shows.

Cassian has lost his family as well, but it seems years in the past. He found a family in Jyn, Galen, all of them. But he can’t stop thinking that something, no someone, is missing.

Jyn doesn’t know how to feel anymore. She has lost her mother and her father, lost faith, lost Saw, lost their child. Be she found her father again, friends, a cause to fight, a reason to live, a husband. But for the first time in weeks, a tiny glimmer of hope reaches her mind. The war is over and they still live. Perhaps she can still find happiness somehow.

* * *

 

_ Six years later _

In the end, they all wind up on Grange, her father’s homeworld. It’s peaceful enough to ensure a quiet life, but still not too far away from everything. They’ve discussed other options, but Fest and Lah’mu hold too many sad memories for them.

It helps that Baze and Chirrut found a Jedhan refugee colony several klicks away from the new Erso-Andor homestead. It helps that Bodhi’s small cargo business is just down the street from them. It helps that Galen lives practically next door.

It helps that there is no war, no battles to fight and no Generals to protect. So the most dangerous situation Lyra Erso-Andor finds herself in while she is still sheltered inside her mother’s belly is Cassian’s slightly panicked style of driving when he rushes them both to the hospital. But this time, there are no complications.

Childbirth is a painful event, but Cassian stays with her all the way through. He does not flinch when she crushes his hand and even smiles when she curses him. Jyn apologizes moments later. But no apologies are needed as he holds their daughter in his arms several minutes later.

She opens her eyes and even though he knows that their color might change, the tears flow when he sees them. Galen’s eyes. Jyn’s eyes. As they gaze upon their newborn daughter together, both can’t stop thinking how Lyra’s older sibling would have looked like. Would they have the same dark hair, the green eyes, a perfect combination of them both? They’ll never know. But both of them know one thing for sure: Lyra will never have to live through the kind of pain her parents experienced. Not as long as any of them draw breath.

* * *

 

It turns out that Galen is the best grandfather one could think about. He and Jyn may still have some slight problems, but the scientist is determined to make amends for missing so much of his own daughter’s life by coddling his granddaughter. He smiles like Jyn dimly remembers he did when they were still on Lah’mu.

Galen is a great grandfather, but Baze, Chirrut and Bodhi give him a run for his money when it comes to caretaking. Kind and sweet Bodhi is a total pushover and Lyra has both her parents wit. He’ll do anything for her. Baze is very similar, playing with their daughter like he isn’t a former assassin and perhaps the toughest fighter on the entire planet. With Lyra, he’s just a big, fluffy teddy bear.

Chirrut is the one they call when Lyra won’t sleep and no gentle soothing from Jyn or Cassian’s Festian lullabies can persuade her to close her eyes. He just looks at her lying in her crib with unseeing eyes and proceeds to tell her stories about the Force, her parents, her uncles, the Jedi and the galaxy. Cassian is sure that more than half of them are invented, but does it matter? Lyra’s asleep as soon as Chirrut voice fades, a knowing smile on the Guardian’s lips.

* * *

 

They finally find their long-desired closure exactly eleven years after Endor. As they watch Lyra and her little brother - named after Cassian’s father - play in the garden behind their house, carefree and without any terrors to keep them awake at night, Jyn and Cassian finally let go of the pain that hung over their lives like a black cloud.

They can not change the past. They can not bring back the dead. But they survived while so many others didn’t, they have a chance to live the life they’ve dreamed of. They have two beautiful children - maybe one day even more - and a small circle of friends they would trust with their lives and they have a peace.

It is not perfect and there are still nights where one of them wakes up after revisiting moments of terror in their dreams. But they always find solace in each other's arms, in kind words from their friends or just by looking at their children sleeping peacefully in their room.

It isn’t perfect, but life isn’t too. Not in this galaxy. But they are as close to it as two persons whose lives were defined and damaged by war can be.

FINIS


End file.
